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For me Marketing has always been about showing customers how a product solves real business problems and creates value. Recently I became familiar with the term, Solutions Marketing. Look online and you’ll find Solutions Marketer job titles in Fortune 500 companies and marketing consultants and agencies that provide Solutions Marketing services.

What is Solutions Marketing? One of the definitions I found on Google stated, Solutions Marketingaddresses a business level problem, aligning products with business value. Good Solutions Marketing speaks directly to business needs.

As a career marketer in various roles (communications, product marketing and management), my job has been to show customers how my company’s products solve real business problems. Whether developing a Marketing Requirements Document for a new product or creating product messaging, each required an understanding of how the product solved a business problem and created value for customers.

Maybe it’s the sign of the times. Many marketing functions have become specialized. As marketers, if we cannot show customers how our products solve business problems, we will fail in our efforts. Solutions Marketing is something we all do (or should do) regardless of our marketing job title (or function).

Wikipedia has this definition of Marketing: B2B marketing is creating value, solutions, and relationships either short-term or long-term with a company or brand. It is an integrated process through which companies build strong customer relationships and create value for their customers and for themselves.

Consider that most companies aren’t large enough to have a specialized Solutions Marketing position or group. Is it the role of all marketing functions to understand and communicate how a product solves a business problem and creates value for customers? What do you think?

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About the Blogger

Susan Lowe is a career marketer who specializes in creating and executing marketing strategies and plans for businesses helping them realize their business goals by bringing energy, expertise and marketing intelligence to every project and client engagement. She currently is an independent marketing consultant located in the San Francisco Bay Area.